Flower class - Guide 124

The Flower class, ASW corvettes of the Royal Navy, are today's subject.

Next on the list:
-Patreon Choice
-USS San Juan
-HMS Sheffield
-USS Johnston
-Dido class
-Hunt class
-HMS Vanguard
-Mogami class
-Almirante Grau
-Surcouf
-Von der Tann
-Massena
-HMCS Magnificent
-HMCS Bonaventure
-HMCS Ontario
-HMCS Quebec
-Lion class BC
-USS Wasp
-HMS Blake
-HMS Romala/Ramola
-SMS Emden
-Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen
-Destroyer Velos
-U.S.S. John R. Craig
-C class
-HMS Caroline
-HMS Hermes
-Iron Duke
-Kronprinz Erzerzorg Rudolph.
-HMS Eagle
-Ise class
-18 inch monitor
-Mogami
-De Zeven Provinciën
-Fletcher class
-USS Langley
-Kongo class
-Grom class
-St Louis class
-H class special
-All-big-gun designs
-USS Oregon
-Gascogne
-Alsace
-Lyon and Normandie classes
-Leander class
-HMS Ajax
-Project 1047
-O class
-R class
-Battle class
-Daring class
-USS Indianapolis
-Atago/Takao
-Midway class
-Graf Zeppelin
-Bathurst class
-RHS Queen Olga
-HMS Belfast
-Aurora
-Imperator Nikolai I
-USS Helena
-USS Tennesse
-HMNZS New Zealand
-HMS Queen Mary
-USS Marblehead
-New York class
-L-20e
-Abdiel class
-Panserskib (Armoured ship) Rolf Krake
-HMS Victoria
-USS Galena (1862)
-HMS Charybdis
-Eidsvold class
-IJN “Special” DD's
-SMS Emden
-Ships of Battle of Campeche
-HMS Tiger
-USS England (DE-635)
-Tashkent
-1934A Class
-HMS Plym (K271)
-Siegfried class

Specials:
-Fire Control Systems
-Protected Cruisers
-Scout Cruisers
-Naval Artillery
-Tirpitz (damage history)
-Treaty Battleship comparison
-Warrior to Pre-dreadnought
-British BC Ammo Handling
-Naval AA Special
-Drydocks

[roteba]

The Flower Class is much like the Hawker Hurricane. It never got the publicity of more glamorous machines, but it stopped Britain crashing out of the war in the first few years.

[scotthill]

“The Cruel Sea, ” gives a fictional account of duty on a Flower Class Corvette. I can’t speak to its accuracy, but it’s a very good book.

[captainloggy]

Fun Fact: There was indeed an HMS Pansy completed under that name, she was a WW1 Cabbage-class minesweeper.

[misterthegeoff]

Unsung heroes of the war. It's hard to imagine a more perfect counterpart to the liberty ships they were escorting.

[joeboscarino]

On a side note, yesterday the 24 of May, Texas State House has approved $ 35, 000, 000 US for the restoration of the USS Texas BB35 . Governor Abbott is expected to sign the bill .

[timsimms]

I live in Nova Scotia and have been aboard the Sackville several times. Late in the season, hardly a soul aboard I roamed the ship alone quietly listening to her as she moved beneath my feet. She is Canada's official naval memorial and the RCN takes her from the Maritime Museum of the North Atlantic to the naval dockyard every winter where she receives the care she so richly deserves.

[jiks]

Good to see one of the most important classes of ship during WW2 getting some attention, nice one Drac.

[Dreska_]

Little cute warships screaming WAAAGH at any uboat they find

[ThePlebicide]

I'm putting a model of a flower class corvette together for a wargame. it will now be call HMS Pansy.

[kevinchappell]

My dad served on a Flower class Corvette during the Battle of The Atlantic. His station was in the boiler/engine room. He didn’t talk about it a lot.

My father passed in 1993. In around 2012 I toured the Sackville in Halifax and they let me go down below. What a hell of a scary way to spend your late teens and early twenties.

[WG]

The Flower Class corvettes were definitely the _cutest_ ships of World War Two, if not the most powerful. 😍

[sarjim]

The USN officially received nine Flower class corvettes from Canadian dockyards and ten directly from RN service in 1942 and early 1943, all to fill in dire shortages of convoy escorts across the Atlantic and from the Caribbean to New York and Canada. The British built ships served as transatlantic convoy escorts through early 1944. Eight Canadian built vessels actually served in the USN while one, USS Beacon, assigned to the USN and commissioned as a USN ship, never actively serving. She was transferred the RN as the HMS Dittany in May, 1943.

These modified Flowers were classed as patrol gunboats in USN service, a role the Canadian built ships actually performed. All eight vessels escorted coastal convoys up and down the US coast, to and from the Caribbean and sometimes as far north as Newfoundland.

The British built ships were taken in hand as soon as they could get to a US dockyard. The British 4" was replaced with US 4"/50 and the aft Vickers 2 pdr pom pom or twin Lewis guns replaced with a 3"/50. The other Lewis guns were either replaced or augmented with 20mm Oerlikons. The Canadian built ships came with a standard armament of two 3"/50 and 2-4 20mm guns.

The USS Pert, maintaining the USN tradition of placing a gun everywhere there was an empty space, had, in addition to the 3" guns, at least seven 20mm, three twin Lewis gun, and a single Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun mounted on top of the bridge. There was a good reason for all these gun, beyond the enjoyment US sailors took firing guns. Coastal convoys were often attacked by U-boats running on the surface. Because the PGs retained their British Type 271 radar, the rest of the war up to about 1944, they were able to detect submarines up to 3, 500 yards, or about 2 miles. This was often more than the U-boat lookouts could see in the typical haze and fog of the coast, especially at night. Once detected, the PG would call for flank speed and charge the U-boat with guns blazing, the hail of fire forcing the U-boat to dive with alacrity. Once it was down, the PG would track the sub with its ASDIC (also British) and hold it down until faster escorts could arrive to attack it. The PG would then sprint back to the convoy and take up the escort role again. U-boats attacked East Coast convoys in wolf packs, and each PG would often have to perform their cavalry charge attacks five or six times during a single escort voyage. The little PG/Flower class corvettes were roundly hated by US sailors for the rolling Drach mentioned, lack of berthing accommodations, and the constant wetness of the ship. Since the ships were built with North Atlantic duty in mind, one can only imagine the torture of being below decks in tropical waters. Nevertheless, the plucky little ships plugged a hole in US escort capabilities during the first two years of the US war, and their presence saved many a merchant ship and the lives of many merchant sailors.

[welshy]

Imagine what a moral boost HMS Pansy would have been to all those in the Navy, not serving on her.

[stashme]

I imagine that the sailors of the HMS Pansi would have to been some toughest men to ever sail the seas.

[Whiskey.T.Foxtrot]

My father served on the K-136, HMCS Shawinigan shown here 9:18. Sunk in the Gulf of St. Laurence with all hands lost.

Fortunately for me, he had just transferred to the K-350, HMCS Cape Breton before that last patrol.

He suffered from survivors guilt for the rest of his life.

[glynwelshkarelian]

Well done sir. The Flower Class was a literal war winner that was forgotten quicker than the Daily Mail's support of Hitler. In the late 60's, early 70's, there was one book about small attack boats (MTB/MGB/E-Boats &c) that praised boat that did nowt for Britain, but ignored the Flower Class, which did more than Bomber Command's heavies ever managed before 44. I started praising the Class after seeing a handmade model in some museum (and I can't remember which), which had a label explaining how vomiting was what you did if you served on one. The men who served on these knew they were on a Woolworth ship that would never be made glorious, no matter what they did. but they bloody well serve well enough to make the difference.

[tomsemmens]

I've always loved the idea of grim, humourless and hardened Nazi submariners meeting a watery fate at the hands of something called like "HMS Daisy".

[kalashnikovdevil]

A couple of Flowers in formation with the Royal Oak had she survived to see the Flowers launched could have been called "The Flowers of the Forest" formation.

[karldubhe]

I'm reminded of that line... "Oh, look at the pretty flower."

[Maddog]

I half expect to see one of these retroactively named "HMS Pineapple-Under-the-Sea".
It doesn't send out sonar pings, just recordings of Spongebob's laugh.